Mayor Jim Watson was on hand Oct. 6 for the culmination of a four-day, eco-friendly architecture design contest at Carleton.
Carleton students teamed up with Dutch students from the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands to make the designs, which were supposed to solve some of Ottawa’s architectural issues in an eco-friendly way.
“The site we’ve chosen is . . . along the O-Train line between Somerset and Gladstone,” said architecture professor Benjamin Gianni.
The four groups of students had four days to design and present the project, and according to the judges of the competition, almost all of them had design problems.
“[The winner] is not a spectacular project. In fact, all of the others had more remarkable elements. But in its non ‘spectacularness’ it did a lot of things right, and the judges identified it as a solid, competent project, and selected it as the winner,” Gianni said.
Watson, who attended the project’s culmination, said the project is very important to Ottawa, emphasizing the city’s lack of advancement in green, urban technology.
“One of the things we are trying to do in the city is certainly learn from our friends in Europe. We have always the temptation to engage in urban sprawl, because we have so much land. But we know that urban sprawl does not pay for itself,” he said.
“In China, they have segregated bike lanes, Montreal has, Vancouver has. We’re late to the game, but at least we’re in the game now with the Laurier segregated bike lane.”
The mayor, along with Netherlands ambassador Wim Geerts, praised the project as an opportunity of growth for both countries.
“It’s a great win-win opportunity to learn some techniques from Europe, and also to bring a practical conclusion right here on city hall,” Watson said.
“It’s so enriching to have all these different perspectives, different angles on a project like this,” Geerts said. “There is a lot of creative thinking here, innovative thinking, out of the box thinking. And I go back feeling more optimistic about the future than I was before.”
